An Update

I thought I'd give a small update for the few people who come visit my blog, considering it's been almost 2 weeks. Basically what has been slowing me down the past while is that I started helping people go through their crashes on the PSP, to see if we could find any new exploits.

I have been working mostly with TiPi, of advancedpsp.tk. There was one we found a short while ago that had potential, but we found that it had been patched on 5.50, and considering there is already enough on 5.03, we dropped it. Soon after we found a very buggy file that was very easy to cause crashes with, and not just 1, what TiPi eventually nicknamed "crash mode", where the whole system was doomed to eventually crash if you didn't turn it off. Before we got to test many of these, however, we stumbled across something else.

Half Byte Loader Revision 100

Sorry I haven't had much updates lately, but I've been able to free time and get myself back on track, I am working on the LanguageTool and will post it ASAP.

In other news, HBL r100 has just been released. Unfortunately nothing new for older users on the Patapon exploit, however HBL r100 has one major improvement, portability. This means it is easier to move HBL to other exploits, and this includes all three versions of "Everybody's Golf", which means people on OFW 6.3x now have a way to run homebrew. As wololo himself states, this isn't flawless yet, and has kinks to work out, but it works better than nothing.

Enjoy your homebrew, and I promise I will be working on all my projects more actively now. I have been picking up on OSL for graphics on PSP and have come up with some other possible future projects.


Source: http://wololo.net/wagic/2010/09/08/release-hbl-r100-for-psps-up-to-ofw-6-31/

Half Byte Loader Revision 99

The new revision 99 of HBL was released today, shortly after revision 98. A small mistake was made in fixing memory cards for PSP Go, that killed HBL on the Go completely, hence the quick new version. Included in these was improved syscall estimation, which nearly puts 6.20 back up there with the rest of the firmwares on non-Go PSPs, and my patch for the home button, which should work in 99% of cases. Any time the home button fails to work, such as crashing or freezing, it would be nice to see a dbglog, post it at the advancedpsp forums like all other HBL dbglogs. Hopefully nobody has problems with it, though.

You can get it from: http://wololo.net/wagic/hbl/

Here is a full version change list from both:
2010/08/29 (JJS)
- Added Nymphaeas patch that allows to exit HBL to the XMB by using the HOME exit menu ( http://advancedpsp.tk/foro_es/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1046 )
- Added code to get additional syscalls using the stubs of utility dialogs loaded into p5.
-- This means sceCtrlPeekBufferPositive can now always be used and the option to override it is now obsolete for all 6.20 users.
-- Also all relevant sceIO* functions should be perfectly estimated now.
- Fix for issue 43 (crash on start from MS on the GO). Kernel dump is now saved to ef0.
- Fix for issue 306 (control issues). Hopefully fixed by replacing the sceCtrlReadBufferPositive call with sceCtrlPeekBufferPositive.
- Corrected 5.70 nids files. Thanks n00b81!
- Corrected scesuspendforuser.nids for 5.xx and 6.xx.
2010/08/30 (Wololo)
- fix a bug introduced in r98 that prevents syscalls from being correctly estimated on pspgo 6.20 (error reading kdump)

I'll try to post updates on HBL here from now on, considering it is one of the bigger things in PSP right now, and that it is what I use.


(source: http://wololo.net/wagic/2010/08/30/half-byte-loader-r9-by-jjs/)

simpleMenu v3 and NyMenu coming

I really need to start making more posts to this blog, lazy little me.

Well, simplemenu v3 should hopefully be out within a week. After it is complete and released, I will work on making a graphical menu, which I will name NyMenu. It will do pretty much everything I have seen people ask for in the menu. It will contain the time and battery levels, all the features of simpleMenu(minus eXtra menu), a nice clean look totally different from the other HBL menus available now, display the icon of the homebrew if available, play the homebrew's sound file if available, and possibly more, who knows.

After NyMenu is done, I will be working on making a 2D fighting-learning game. Wierd mix? Oh well, it works. It will be focused on those trying to learn Japanese, more specifically to read the kana and kanji, and to do so in a fast paced, action filled setting so to make the learning a bit more fun. Because the game will be based around reading characters, it could possibly be modified to allow other languages that do not use latin characters as well.

Now here is a list of the new features I am working on for simpleMenu v3:
~ A search function
~ Multiple languages can be loaded from a menu/language/ subdirectory.
~ A language file editor for those who wish to contribute changes.
~ Four sorting methods instead of the original idea of six. It appears the PSP autosorts eboot-less directories alphabetically at the top of the list, so you will have the choice of alphabetic or modification date sorting for eboots, as well as a choice of having directories first or last.
~ Built in HBL config editor. The only problem with this will be that it removes any commenting from the config file, but otherwise it will work.
~ I will possibly be changing from my textinput method to a danzef-like method, as it should be a bit faster.

Well, expect to see more when that is done. I may release the language editor before the menu so that there can be some alternatives included in the simpleMenu v3 release.

simpleMenu Version 2

A tiny bit late, but here it is! I decided to do some extensive testing this time before releasing it, so I think I caught all the bugs, but I would still love it if people could keep an eye out for them.

Here are the download links:
simpleMenu v2
simpleMenu v2 (eBoot only)

And here's the feature listing:
~Unlimited homebrew loading
~Sorting of homebrew using directories
~eXtra Menu now supports directories, which will be opened in the eBoot Menu
~Pressing L and R will open the simpleHacks menu, a personalization tool
~Change foreground and background colors in simpleHacks
~Change how eboot names are handled in simpleHacks
~Change which button is used for selecting, circle or cross, in simpleHacks
~eXtra Editor now in simpleHacks, old bugs fixed and now allows 10 entries

simpleMenu V2 this weekend

I appologize it is taking me so long for V2. I was planning to release it today, but it will have to wait until tomorrow or sunday. The problem was that I tried getting the cache to work with the new multi-directory version, which was messy messy messy. Even when I thought of a way to do it, getting it working well is another issue all together.

The fix? I'm dropping the cache. It prevents the need to define how many directories deep you want to be able to load(no limit), and makes one of the new features I came up with work a little easier anyways. Should also make alot of the functions run much faster.

As for the new features, here is some that haven't been listed here:
~Aside from allowing subdirectories, the eXtra menu will support folders, and open that folder in the main menu as if it was your root homebrew folder(pressing the exit button at this point will bring you back to the original menu)
~The menu will not display normal files or folders with corrupt eboots

Also, I already have a list of what will be on V3! Those are:
~Multiple Languages changeable in simpleHacks
~Sorting algorithms to make browsing a little cleaner, will have psp method(by creation date), alphabetical order, and a variation of both with directories at the top or bottom(6 total)
~Built in HBL config edittor

After that, simpleMenu will be pretty much done. My next HBL menu, which will have graphics, sound, bells and whistles, will have any further requested features. The features for simpleMenu v3 should be enough for a simple menu :P

PSP-RegEdit delayed, simpleMenu V2

I am still working on RegEdit, but I found another small problem with the simpleMenu, and instead of continuously re-releasing it, I'm going to just add a bunch of the features people have been asking for to the menu, and release a version 2. In order to add some of them, I will be dropping hblmenu.

Things to expect:
~Subdirectories
For all the people who wanted it, I'll be adding the ability to access subdirectories.
~Unlimited Homebrew
For you insane people who have hundreds, this will be for you(what do you do with hundreds? o.O)
~Fixed eXtra Menu
Every fix I've posted for this thing has bugged up, it should work 100% in v2.
~simpleHacks menu
A menu that will be accessed by pressing L+R, it will give the following options.
~Colour Customization
A simple little modification, allows modification of the foreground and background colours.
~Name Customization
Will allow you to choose to use the eBoot title or the folder name for use in the menu.
~Select Button Customization
Due to having directories, a back button will be needed. Standard choice of X or O.
~eXtra Editor
Free up a slot for your eXtra Menu by moving the editor to simpleHacks.

Have anything else to request? Please tell me, I'd love to help. I may consider adding multiple languages to it, considering how little there is to translate, although that I may wait for v3.

simpleMenu, hblmenu and textinput

UPDATE 2: I've noticed some people have been downloading this version still. If you're curious about the programming that's okay, but there is a newer version available [HERE].

UPDATE: A small bug was found in the eXtra Editor that prevented its eXtra.nym files from working, the download links have been updated to the new working version. Sorry for any inconvenience ^-^

After plenty of bug fixing, here are the first few files I'll be posting up. I also added a download page with these links.

simpleMenu for HBL (eboots only version)
textInput for PSP Programming
hblmenu for HBL Menu Programming

Please tell me any bugs you find within the code, I spent a while checking but you can never be too sure. Hope you enjoy :)


Here are the descriptions I posted yesterday again of the files:
~hblmenu.c & hblmenu.h
A set of files I made to make Half Byte Loader menu programming a little simpler, mainly for people newer to programming. I added some commenting, however all code is credited to wololo.
~textinput.c & textinput.h
A set of files I made to give a simple input function for text mode applications for the PSP. I tried to comment it for those interested, and it will come with a readme.txt for usage.
~simpleMenu
A simple menu(who would of guessed that? :O) for Half Byte Loader using the above two. Aside from xstrtoi, the code in this is writen by me. It includes an "eXtra Menu", along with the standard one for linking to other eboots not in your main homebrew folder. Includes a second eboot for modifying the eXtra menu.